


on broken ribs and brethren traitors

by catchandsingthesuninflight



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: Found Family, Gen, The Brotherhood - Freeform, adira gets kind of mad, adira thinks quirin is dead, also there's crying, also they're totally gonna break varian outta jail eventually, bc i love them, hector is feral of course, i named the bearcats and also they're binturongs, madira, post-The Great Tree, quirin's only in this in flashbacks, slight angst with a happy ending, sorry - Freeform, you do not escape being tossed off a hundred foot cliff unscathed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:47:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23761063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catchandsingthesuninflight/pseuds/catchandsingthesuninflight
Summary: Hector and Adira, following the fight in Zhan Tiri's tree.
Relationships: Adira & Hector & Quirin (Disney: Tangled), Adira & Hector (Disney: Tangled)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 64





	on broken ribs and brethren traitors

**Author's Note:**

> eyyyy my first ao3 fic!!! TTS/RTA is a surprisingly good quarantine show to binge in a week, and there's so much lore to work with. also season 3 didn't give the Brotherhood enough love (especially Adira), which is where fanfic comes it, obviously. if i'm up to it, there'll be a lot more on my front.
> 
> hella inspiration gained from @pnumbra-rbs on Tumblr and their many amazing Brotherhood headcannons. they've got an art blog @penumbra too, if you're a fan of the series you should check it out!

He is exhausted. Defeated. His domain burned to ash. The fight -- _fights_ , plural, have taken a toll. The caravan chase and his one-on-one with Adira had been more or less routine, as easy as breathing to him, but the scuffle with the lady-in-waiting had ended with him getting thrown down a hundred foot fucking cliff, a dozen of measly, half-rotted vines the only things breaking his fall. And while years of training in the presence of the moonstone and in service to the Brotherhood have made him a resilient man, a fall is a fall, and the ground had been as cold and hard and unforgiving as any other when he had hit it. **  
**

Even then, broken and beat, only one thought had passed his mind when faced with Demanitus’s spear, the heart of Zhan Tiri’s tree, and the choice he was to make. _Do not let anybody reach the Dark Kingdom._

He should be dead. Yet here he is, half-awake and able to remember the feeling of struggling against wretched roots and vines and a sickly, poisonous power that used _him_ rather than the other way around. _Anything to stop the outsiders,_ he had thought. But he remembers the feeling of dying, too. _Wither and decay._ The moonstone incantation had killed the Great Tree. He is at a loss as to why it hadn’t done the same to him.

As his mind begins to wake up, sticky and slow like sap from a tree, he distracts himself from the wretched memories by taking stock of himself. He can’t open his eyes just yet, can’t shift more than an inch lest his body scream out in protest, but he can feel the familiar coarse coat of one of his binturongs beneath him. His worries settle, if only for a moment.

That’s when he hears the extra set of steps, light and precise and human. He’s always had sharp ears.

“Adira,” he does his best to snarl, but it comes out as a croak, and his head aches with the effort.

“Hector,” she answers, too soft and pitying for his liking. “Rest.”

He can’t find it in him to respond or refuse. The fog in his mind overtakes him once again.

* * *

He startles awake from his sleep, and he cannot remember what he dreamt, though the anxious alertness it made him feel remains. His eyes and body adjust to take in the heat of a fire, the surrounding thicket of trees, the night sky above, and the rough fur of one of his binturongs against his half-bare back. He cranes his neck and Cygnus does the same to look back at him. He smiles weakly when she chuckles. A moment later, Aquila pads up to Hector’s side, and lays his head on his bandaged chest with a contented snort.

“They’re very loyal,” Adira’s voice comes from across the fire, and Hector’s jaw tightens at the sound of it. “Something you all have in common.”

“And something you know nothing of,” he spits. “Traitor.”

“Wow. Already? Okay,” she says, amusement at the edges of her voice as she stokes the fire with her shadowblade. In her other hand is a half-eaten apple, red as her warpaint. She catches him looking. “I’d offer you some, but I only grabbed one for everybody, and I already ate yours.” She takes another bite, and with her mouth full, adds, “Didn’t know when you were going to wake up.”

Hector shakes his head, as if that will drive the sluggishness and quickly growing irritation out of his thoughts. “I don’t want your stupid apple.” Out loud, it’s less menacing and more ridiculous than he intends. His hand runs through Aquila’s coat. “Why are you still here?”

“Just wanted to make sure you didn’t die, brother.” The last word is tacked on at the last moment, not quite bitter, not quite warm. She doesn’t glance up from the fire, and he watches as the shadows dance across the two halves of her face. “Your companions are great and all, but I don’t think they can set broken ribs quite as well as I can. You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Thank you _so much_ ,” he drawls. “But as you can see, I’m not dead, so, _bye_.”

“My fire,” Adira shoots back. “You can leave, if you want. Oh wait,” she looks at him then as she tosses the apple core into the fire, eyes and voice mocking, “you can’t.”

He growls and props himself up on his forearms, ignoring the sharp pain in his abdomen. Aquila gives a low grunt and lets off reluctantly, though he and Cygnus watch Hector, obviously worried. Adira does not stand, but her mouth sets into a hard line, and she motions at him with the shadowblade. “Lie down. You’re going to--”

“I never _asked_ for your charity,” Hector snarls, pushing himself up to rest on his knees. His vision swims, and his breathing becomes labored. Adira says nothing, and for a moment they only stare at each other, waiting to see who moves first. Still the fire burns, the shadows now flickering across the bandages wrapped tightly around Hector’s torso. Soon enough the heat starts to fill his lungs, heavy, humid -- and in the next moment the staring contest is over, and Adira has knocked him softly back onto Cygnus, keeping him there with a careful hold that he lacks the strength to break.

“Stop being an idiot,” she tells him, and he huffs, but stops his struggling. “I’m leaving in the morning. Whatever you do then is up to you, but for now--” she shakes her head, irritated, because she knows he’s never liked to surrender, to listen, to obey, unless the order is one given by the king. “Just rest, Hector.” And that is less a command, more of a plea from a friend. From family.

 _From a traitor_ , he spits, corrects in his mind. But it is weak and he is weak, and so he finally does as she asks, and rests his body. His mind, on the other hand, is wide awake and whirring. He talks, if only to keep himself from falling back into memories of the sensation of uncontrollable magic and death and decay again.

“Why?” is the first question out of his mouth. It surprises both of them.

“What do you mean, _why_?” Adira asks, and -- is she _angry_? 

He runs his fingers through Aquila’s coat before answering. “I would have killed you, in the tree.”

“I know,” she says, lightly, like it’s hardly of any consequence. “But you were possessed, and I’m a nice person, so I’ll let it slide.”

He pauses. Adira has never been particularly compassionate or forgiving with anyone other than... Hector lets out a wild laugh, more mad than mirthful, as he realizes. “Is _that_ it? You think there’s still some kind of _Brotherhood_ _bond_ between us?” His laughter falls away into something harsher, voice darkening. “I told you, Adira, if you tried to bring the sundrop back to the Dark Kingdom, I would kill--”

“ _Kill me_ , yes, you _always_ say that,” she interrupts, eyes rolling. “I get it. I’m a traitor, treason against the king, _blah blah blah_. But you know, for someone who threatens my death so much, you’re not very good at carrying that threat out.”

Hector scowls, malice filling his chest, sharp and churning wild. “Oh, I _will_.” 

He says it so full of hatred and conviction, but the problem with Adira, what has always been the problem with Adira, is she has always been fearless--recklessly, arrogantly so. She doesn’t know when to back down. He’s telling the truth, with every part of himself. She is a traitor to the kingdom they swore to protect, and he will kill her for that. But she doesn’t believe him simply because she thinks she _knows better._ **  
**

Her voice rings, “You could have killed me after you knocked me out in our fight, but you didn’t.” **  
**

“Killing the sundrop was more important,” Hector bites back, anger swelling in his chest.

Adira cocks her head, her little self-satisfied smile unfaltering. “And you couldn’t even do that. I mean, beaten by short-hair? Really? She isn’t even that--”

“Adira, stop talking _now_ , or I will have my bearcats eat you in your sleep.” 

She laughs, and oh, how he’d _love_ to drive his blade through her heart right then and there.

Strangely enough, he finds himself indignant, desperate to defend his abilities. Like he’s twelve again, before he figured out that he wasn’t growing any bigger, that he couldn’t fight the same way Adira or Quirin did. A memory pounces on him, then, like a starving wildcat--

_thirteen years old and he’s a whirlwind, he’s knocking Adira down for the first time, and triumph bursts, warm and giddy in his chest. She looks up at him, and her shock soon turns to a grin, a challenge, and Quirin cheers on the sidelines--_

He shoves it away. Where is all this stupid sentiment coming from?

His desperation still remains. Eyes closed against the brightness of the fire, he spits, “The lady-in-waiting was _smart_. Fucked up her stance on purpose, used the fact that she was less experienced to her advantage--”

“And you fell for it,” Adira snickers. “Some mighty Brotherhood warrior you are.” Hector’s eyes fly open at the offense, but before he has a chance to spew venom at her again, she wisely changes the subject. “You know, while we’re having this lovely conversation, I’ve always wondered why you don’t seem to threaten Quirin’s life nearly as much as you threaten mine.”

“Quirin’s never tried to do the one thing our king told us not to do.”

“Yeah, but he’s not exactly _helping the cause_ , is he?” 

Hector’s teeth grind at the ridicule in Adira’s words, but when he glances up, her gaze has fallen back into the fire, and there’s something in it that he doesn’t have the capacity right now to interpret by himself. “What?” he asks instead, and it comes out as a bark, more forceful than he actually intends.

“You don’t know.” The turn of her lips is a smile, though it is neither joyful nor mocking. It’s full of… _sorrow_ , and Hector finds a new sort of desperation clawing from behind his broken ribcage. 

“ _What_?” he demands again. Then, trying to muster some semblance of softness but failing miserably, “Adira. What don’t I know?”

“He’s dead,” she says simply, and nothing more.

 _Lying_ , some wild thing in Hector’s head, his chest, his stomach, howls. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not.”

“ _No_ ,” he growls. “You’re--”

Adira looks back at him, then, her eyes filled with tears that threaten to spill and break the barrier of hatred and hostility that he has erected between them. And he fights it, fights how it wells in his chest, more painful than his broken bones, than the moonstone incantation, than _anything_ Hector has felt in a long, long time. It is a torrent of too many things--shock and denial and disbelief and _knowing_ , knowing that Adira is not lying, that what she says is true. _Quirin is… He’s…_

Hector’s mind struggles to accept it, even with the knowing.

In the end, all those emotions blur together into the blue, ragged feeling of _loss_. And when his own tears spill over, Adira’s follow, their silent sobs matching one another’s. Shared hearts, shared sorrows. Hector clutches at Aquila to steady himself, and Cygnis purrs under his head. He loses himself in the roughness of his coat under his fingers, and her rumbling beneath him, just for a moment.

“ _How_?” he asks when he’s able, his voice raw, finally made soft by grief.

Adira shakes her head, hunched slightly over her sword, staring into the fire. “The black rocks. Some kind of...accident.” Before he can ponder what she means by that, she says, “The rocks, the moonstone-- _everything_ , Hector. We have to put an end to all of it.”

He finds himself regaining some of his senses. “Adira, _no_ \--”

With a sudden shout, Adira drives the point of her shadowblade into the ground, and the earth cracks beneath her feet. The binturongs wail and growl, and Hector finally hears Rino grunt behind him. It becomes a passing thought as soon as Adira stands and whirls to face him, the fire at her back, casting her in shadow. **  
**

Her eyes flash with an untempered rage. “You’re so loyal to the Dark Kingdom, Hector. Don’t you get it? Can’t you see? No one remains except the king. It’s a fucking skeleton!”

His own feral rage meets hers. “It is _home_.”

“ _No!_ ” she yells, stepping towards him. “ _You_ are home. _Quirin_ was home. From the time we were ten years old, we had nothing except each other, until Edmund disturbed the opal and sent the kingdom into _ruin_ \--”

“Do _not_ speak of the king like that,” Hector hisses, shooting up once again to his knees. His ribs scream but the force of his hatred defies the pain--he hates this, hates her, hates how his conviction falters even further.

Adira fails to respond immediately. Her eyes search him instead, for-- _what?_ _Vulnerabilities? Weakness?_ Immediately he is at the ready, powering through the nausea and sharp throbbing of his injuries. She towers over him, but he is ready to pounce, and so are his binturongs--

She surprises him by kneeling down. This way they are more or less on the same level--she has always been taller than him. Stronger, too. But even with his injuries, he’s sure his companions could make up for the difference.

She does not attack, of course. Neither does she reach for him. For a split second he wonders why, when she has made such an effort to close the distance already, before he remembers--of course. How could he have ever forgotten? 

His concussed head slips easily into the memory.

_I don’t like being touched, she had said, and his own desperate mind sang a chorus of why, why, why. Quirin was born low nobility but Adira and him had begun the same way--scrappy, thieving urchins, unwanted and unloved. And here, finally, the three of them had made a home with each other, had found their places as soldiers in service to King Edmund, and Hector thought that meant they were bound together by duty and trust and loyalty and--and love. Quirin could see the way Hector longed for something to hold on to, Quirin was always close when he needed it. But when Hector reached for Adira she was always just beyond his grasp, always slipping from his hold, and every single time his heart would sing the question along with his head, because he couldn’t possibly comprehend it. After everything they’d been through together, and all that he felt for her and for Quirin--did she not feel the same way? Did she not love him as he did her?_

He had been a stupid kid, starved for more than just food. 

But the memory takes another crack at the barrier, and he finds that he’s fourteen again. Now he’s the one who wants to reach out, to hold his oldest friend tight enough that this rift may seal and their hearts may heal and they can turn back into two orphans--and with Quirin, into three warriors, into family, loving with every piece of themselves, trusting without hesitation, and whole, just _whole_ , instead of what broken thing remains now.

He has since learned the meaning of boundaries, and how sometimes love isn’t the act of being held close, but simply _presence_. They were always there for each other, watching each other’s backs both in and out of battle. Adira _is_ always there for him, even now. But neither of them could be there for Quirin.

And just like that, all his hatred and conviction collapses right under the realization. That is all it took--a saved life, a conversation, a couple of memories. Grief and the truth.

He doesn’t touch her, but his eyes meet hers--his wild, glowing green to her deep, dark brown--and he knows somehow that she’s remembering the same thing he is. For the first time in years--in _decades_ \--they see each other.

And she pulls him into an embrace. He lets her. They are holding each other, for once just to hold, and not to hurt. She is warm and strong, and Hector feels... _complete_. Like he’s recovered a piece of himself that he hadn’t known he’d lost in the first place.

He lets her determine when it ends, and tries not to miss the comfortable weight of her chest against his, or the way their breathing and then their hearts had synced. She stands to pull the shadowblade from the earth, and this time nothing is disturbed.

“Lie down,” she tells him when she returns, still commanding, but softer, somehow.

He does so without argument, his ribs still aching painfully. Aquila and Cygnis have switched places, and the latter purrs with her head on his chest as he runs his hand through her coat. Adira sits down close beside him, legs criss-crossed, and balances the shadowblade on her knees.

They sit in a comfortable silence for a good long while before he must tell her. He is afraid of shattering whatever tenuous connection they have only just re-established, but he also refuses to lose himself any further than he already has. **  
**

“I can’t betray King Edmund, Adira.” He waits for her to snap at him, to curse at him, to leave him. But she does not, and so he continues. “I won’t get in your way anymore, but I can’t follow you on your path.”

He counts, gets to four seconds before she answers.

“Okay,” she nods, and he lets out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. “Will you meet me afterwards?”

Hector smiles. “If you’re still alive? I’d be glad to.” His next breath is a heavy one. “Don’t die, Adira. Please.”

He watches as she runs her fingers across the flat length of her sword. “I will...try my best.” He gives her a pointed look, and she shrugs, apologetic. “I don’t know what will happen when the sundrop and the moonstone reunite. I just know that it has to happen.” She frowns. “You were right, you know. I’m ninety percent sure I’m sending those kids off to their doom.”

“And you, with them,” he says. And...he already knows her answer, but he has to try regardless. “You could stay. We could leave now. I’m sure they can handle themselves against Edmund and Hamuel.”

“ _Ha-ha,_ yeah, you haven’t actually met them,” she says. Her eyes find his once again, and the concern in his expression. She sighs. “It is Rapunzel’s destiny to reunite the sundrop with the moonstone, and my duty to make sure she gets that far.”

Hector shuts his eyes. “I know, sister. Just thought I’d try.”

He’s afraid that he will lose her, so soon after he’s found her again. He tries not to feel as if it is inevitable. Maybe the stars will be kind, just as they were all those years ago when they brought the three of them together. Maybe they will have mercy on his bloodsoaked hands and his cowardly heart, and return his sister back to him once she has done what needs to be done. 

It is too close to wishing for his liking.

“Where will we meet?” he says instead, as if saying so will ensure that she comes back to him, as if her answering will be a promise that she must keep.

If she notices his intentions, she doesn’t say anything. “Well, I was thinking. Quirin had a son.”

Hector’s eyes snap open. “ _What?_ ”

Adira grins. “You _really_ should have stayed in touch, Hector.”

He ignores that, and instead asks the important questions. “What’s his name? How old is he? Where is he? Does he have a mother? Does he know about us?”

She laughs at his sudden excitement. “Varian, a teenager, Old Corona, his mother died, and _no_ , of course not.”

“Figures.” Quirin had always been the most well-adjusted and adaptable of them, and the one with the biggest desire to settle down. Hector lets his heart ache for a second before continuing. “He’s an orphan, then. Like us.”

Adira cocks her head. “Orphans raising an orphan. How do you think that will go?”

Hector looks up at her. “Guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”

She smiles, and _that_ is a promise.

Adira gently picks up her shadowblade and lays it between them, then shifts to lie down at his side. At first she’s too high, ending up on the same level as Aquila, and Hector chuckles along with the binturong. Adira rolls her eyes and awkwardly pushes herself below his companion’s eyeline, though that way she has to bend her legs to keep from kicking the fire.

It is quiet, save for their steady breaths and the soft wind. Hector lets himself yawn, and Cygnus purrs in response, her eyes falling closed.

“You’re not going to change your mind and kill me in my sleep, are you?” Adira asks.

“Only if you snore,” he answers. “You still gonna be here when I wake up?”

“Depends on what time you wake up,” she tells him.

Hector supposes he can work with that. 

He falls into the darkness of sleep once again, and dreams old memories of his brethren he had thought long-forgotten.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm hoping none of the characters were too ooc. a lot of this fic was based on Hector's and Adira's interactions in The Great Tree, particularly how Adira was never overly offensive in their fight and how Hector apologized after knocking her out (the fight scenes in TGT are *chef's kiss*). also that five seconds in Destinies Collide where Adira straight up calls the king "Edmund", and gives him a shifty look in the flashback. girl does not respect the king and i love her for that. (don't get me wrong i like Edmund, Adira's just the best ya feel?)
> 
> Hector's binturongs/bearcats are named after constellations. why? bc hector is a greek name and the constellations are roman and he's bound to the moonstone and yeah idk they were just pretty ok. also his rhino is named Rino. as in Rinoceronte. bc Cassandra naming her owl "Owl" is an inspiration and in my head Hector's whatever the Tangled universe's equivalent for Hispanic is. i'm Filipino okay and it costs u zero dollars to let me headcannon characters as POC.
> 
> lastly, thanks for reading!!! ;)))


End file.
